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Hey, I have just as much right to shoot my mouth off as anyone else. :) I
apologize for my wording, in this regard.
However, regarding Kim's retort to my characteristically provocative
statement, I still have yet to hear about any cards beyond the few I've
read
about over a year ago that support or use FireWire. There's a vast
distance
between it being "nearly fully integrated in ICs", and those ICs being
actually used on a mass-market card.
And, no, I'm not asking about Macs (but then you've guessed that by now).
So who actually is using it? All I've seen is mucho mentioning of seminars
and talks about FW, without much information about a real-world result that
regular folks can use. Examples?
> The reason it's not everywhere is just simple economics, the demand
> hasn't been great enough to bring prices down to where it's appropriate
for
> low-cost PC's and consumer devices. It's getting pretty close now though.
Yes, but it's not here yet. Again, real world solutions for other than the
first people to be able to afford DATs in this country would be useful.
While there can certainly be optimistic feelings about this, it's not There
yet, is it? Or is it?
And again, I'm talking about a product anyone can buy off the shelf for
less
than $200 - which is far more than such an interface card would cost to
make, even in the US.
Any approach Yamaha makes in this regard is dubious, given their history in
the PC realm, from the unfortunate Music Feature, to the equally
unfortunate
(and equally non-standard) XG card ("Hey folks, make your PC into a Karaoke
machine!"), so I'd disregard them altogether unless they release a
non-proprietary card. Additionally, I'm still curious about their not
developing software for their interface-less keyboards, but hey!
> The "they" in your sentence is really you....if
> people aren't lining up to buy it, nobody's going to rush to make it.
Bolshoi! People haven't been driving the computer market by demanding
things, they've grown to expect the business to continually supply them
with
more innovative approaches to computing. So it's not a supply-and-demand
situation until Something Actually Hits Market. This is where the PC
market
(including the Macs folks) has assured a continual path to growth, not by a
process of meeting demand, but anticipating it. And it's one of the
reasons
why so many companies misapply themselves to the PC biz, believing that all
they have to do is supply something people demand, in order to survive.
Which always leads to closing up shop, or being bought out, unless you're
just a middleman.
> The trouble with Ethernet is it's a non-deterministic network
> architecture, and you can't guarantee arrival times of any data sent over
> it. For audio, this means dropouts, and for midi (or some similar control
> protocol), it means lots of synchronization and timing problems. This is
why network
> architectures like ATM and 1394 are being adopted for these purposes
> instead of Ethernet.
To be completely clear, I was referring to Local usage, not Internet/World
usage. With its variable packet size, something ATM has only recently
become capable of, Ethernet (especially over FDDI) is quite capable of
delivering on such a load. The only machines I've ever seen not be able to
seamlessly work with Ethernet are Macs - which would certainly affect Mac
users' (and ex-Mac users') attitudes about Ethernet. The only other
anti-Ethernet group I've encountered is populated by people who, upon
arriving into the network support business as late as they did, have
perhaps
only worked with ATM, which has had a heavy evangelization effort in the
business network sector for several years.
> anyway, speak from what you know, it's safer...:-)
Having been working in the network services arena to pay rent for the past
12 years, I'd say Yes, I Am.
Stephen GoodmanÊ *Ê It's The Loop Of The Week!
EarthLight StudiosÊ *Ê http://www.earthlight.net/Studios